Joan Mitchell

Museum Ludwig, Koln

Her Life and Paintings. The legendary and now increasingly recognized artist, who emigrated to France in the 1950s, developed her own form of abstract painting in the milieu of the New York School. The show presents some 30 paintings, some of which are very large-format and span several panels.

comunicato stampa

Curators: Yilmaz Dziewior and Leonie Radine

The avant-gardes of the twen­ti­eth cen­tu­ry, in­clud­ing Ab­s­tract Ex­pres­sion­ist paint­ing, were led by men, but Jack­son Pol­lock and all the others could not stop Joan Mitchell. The le­g­endary and now in­creas­ing­ly rec­og­nized artist, who emi­grat­ed to France in the 1950s, de­vel­oped her own form of ab­s­tract paint­ing in the mi­lieu of the New York School: a po­et­ic style be­tween cal­cu­la­tion and emo­tion, one which both se­duces the sens­es and sti­m­u­lates the in­tel­lect. With some thir­ty paint­ings, some of which are very large-for­mat and span sev­er­al pan­els, the show at the Mu­se­um Lud­wig pre­sents one of the most im­por­tant fig­ures in twen­ti­eth-cen­tu­ry art.

In part­n­er­ship with the Kun­sthaus Bre­genz and in close co­op­er­a­tion with the Joan Mitchell Foun­da­tion in New York, the Mu­se­um Lud­wig is pre­sent­ing a ma­jor ret­ro­spec­tive of the le­g­endary artist Joan Mitchell (b.1925 in Chica­go, d. 1992 in Paris). The show fo­cus­es on her paint­ing, rang­ing from ear­ly works from the 1950s to her lat­er work dur­ing the fi­nal years of her life.

Fur­ther­more, a large part of the ex­hi­bi­tion is ded­i­cat­ed to the first ex­ten­sive dis­play of archi­val ma­te­rials from the Joan Mitchell Foun­da­tion. With film re­cord­ings and pho­to­graphs as well as cor­re­spon­dence, in­vi­ta­tions, posters, and other ephe­mera, Joan Mitchell’s vi­brant per­so­n­al­i­ty and her vari­ous re­la­tion­ships to artists, au­thors, and other fig­ures from the cul­tu­r­al world of her time are il­lu­mi­nat­ed. She main­tained close con­tact with Elaine de Koon­ing, Franz Kline, and Jean-Paul Ri­opelle as well as Frank O’Hara and Sa­muel Beck­ett, among others.

At the very be­gin­n­ing of her ca­reer, Joan Mitchell par­ti­ci­pat­ed in doc­u­men­ta II in Kas­sel in 1959. Her works are rep­re­sent­ed in the col­lec­tions of the most im­por­tant mu­se­ums in the Unit­ed States and France. How­ev­er, like other fe­male pain­ters of her gen­er­a­tion, to this day she has not re­ceived the same lev­el of recog­ni­tion in in­ter­na­tio­n­al ex­hi­bi­tions as her on­ly slight­ly old­er male col­leagues Jack­son Pol­lock, Franz Kline, or Willem de Koon­ing. How­ev­er, young artists in par­tic­u­lar have since dis­cov­ered Joan Mitchell and her art. Along with her eman­ci­pa­to­ry at­ti­tude, this is al­so due not least to the par­tic­u­lar po­si­tion­ing of her paint­ing, which – like her bi­og­ra­phy – lies be­tween the vari­ous cul­tu­r­al spheres of the Unit­ed States and Eu­rope. While her ini­tial defin­ing in­flu­ences came from her home­land – born in 1925 in Chica­go, she most­ly lived in New York un­til emi­grat­ing to France in the 1950s – Eu­ro­pean art be­came in­creas­ing­ly im­por­tant to her.

Like al­most no other artist, she suc­ceed­ed in con­vey­ing pheno­m­e­na such as light, wa­ter, and plants in her at­mo­spher­ic pic­tures and si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly re­tain­ing a com­plete­ly autono­mous ab­s­trac­tion. Cal­cu­la­tion and emo­tion en­ter in­to a dia­logue that both sen­su­al­ly se­duces and in­tel­lec­tu­al­ly sti­m­u­lates the view­er through her dee­p­ly orig­i­nal style of paint­ing in oc­ca­sio­n­al­ly very large-for­mat works. Es­pe­cial­ly in her late mul­ti-pan­el works, vi­su­al realms open up whose ac­cen­tu­a­tions of col­or and depth can­not be pre­cise­ly fath­omed and pull the view­er in­to the pic­ture.

The ex­hi­bi­tion brings to­gether works from in­sti­tu­tions such as the Mu­se­um of Mod­ern Art in New York, the Cen­tre Pompi­dou in Paris, and the Joan Mitchell Foun­da­tion as well as works from pri­vate col­lec­tions which have nev­er or on­ly sel­dom been shown in public.